Nairobi , 14 March 2005 - In response to the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean region , UN-HABITAT mobilis ed field teams during the first week of January. Habitat Programme Managers acted on UN-HABITAT p rinciple s in the shelter sector, helping UN Country Team coordination, and accelerating response, resource mobilisation, and project formulation.

UN-HABITAT has identified specific five areas of intervention:

Emergency clean-up and environmental remediation;

Restoration of critical infrastructure;

Emergency/transition shelter

Land-use planning - looking at capital investment in IDP camps with a view to leveraging future value; and

Restoration of livelihoods.

Apart from emergency interventions where shelter is the central challenge, UN-HABITAT has also developed a series of sustainable reconstruction activities which include:

Land property administration,

Good local governance and institutional development,

Capacity building and empowerment of local institutions and civil society, including gender issues,

Economic recovery,

Strategic partnerships, and

Disaster mitigation and vulnerability reduction.

UN-HABITAT participation at the earliest stages was necessary in order to ensure that h uman settlements interventions, either immediate emergency or transition recovery, are linked to long-term development strategies of disaster-hit countries .

T oday, UN-HABITAT has on-going operations in Sri Lanka , Indonesia , Thailand and Maldives . In addition, following in depth assessment missions to Somalia , an integrated settlements recovery programme has been developed and is actively seeking donor support.

In Sri Lanka , project activities related to physical reconstruction and social recovery have commenced in five cities. The UN-HABITAT country team is promoting partnerships with sister agencies, and is currently working closely with WHO in environmental sanitation efforts, and recent collaboration with FAO has resulted in a joint project to support fishing communities in livelihood revitalisation and shelter reconstruction. Support has also been provided encompassing cross-sectoral concerns like governance, secure tenure, gender and community involvement in local decision making.

In Indonesia , a team of experts is working on two complementary streams of activities: supporting sectoral needs assessment and developing specific proposals and implementation approaches in the Aceh province. A UN-HABITAT site office in Banda Aceh has been established and community mobilisation is underway. UN-HABITAT has assisted UNDP in designing the Aceh Emergency Response & Transitional Recovery Programme, which aims at fostering a crucial link between immediate short-term and longer-term recovery and development activities.

UN-HABITAT fielded an expert in late January to Maldives to work closely with the UN country team in designing a shelter recovery programme. In particular, UN-HABITAT has been working in tandem with UNDP to mobilize resources in support of shelter reconstruction and repair.

The Government-led recovery is well underway in Thailand with keen interest for UN-HABITAT and UNDP to participate in shelter reconstruction. UNDP and UN-HABITAT have joined hands on activities dealing with land and local governance, through the “ Supporting Sustainable Shelter and Resettlement project” .